I’ve done this a long time, but on Friday as I sat next to Boo Radley, Lt. Col. William “Bill” Kilgore and Tom Hagan, all rolled up in the form of Robert Duvall, I don’t mind admitting I was star struck.
Even though he was one of the most quotable actors I had spoken to during the opening days of TIFF — for instance he said, “I call Billy Bob Thornton the hillbilly Orson Welles.” — while he was talking all I could hear were his lines from his famous movies rolling around in my head.
Getting an up close and personal look at the 83-year-old Oscar winner, brought back memories of him as Apocalypse Now’s warmongering Kilgore, shirtless kneeling down to tell his soldiers, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning,“ and Don Corleone’s loyal adopted son Tom in The Godfather. “He never asks a second favor when he’s been refused a first.”
The actor was at TIFF to discuss the opening night film The Judge. He stars opposite Robert Downey Jr. as an erasable old judge, who, when accused of vehicular manslaughter must reluctantly rely on his estranged lawyer son for a defense in court. Luckily I pulled myself together long enough to take some notes.
When he’s asked what it’s like to play a mean character, he says, “Who’s mean? What’s mean about him? He’s a human being.”
He adds, “I almost didn’t take this but once I took it I had to jump in. There are so many negative things about the guy.”
But when asked if he’s afraid to immerse himself in negative characters, his answer turns into a master class on acting. “Why would I be afraid? Once I commit to do it, I’ll do it. I just wonder about it sometimes. Is it worth it to show those negative aspects of somebody?
“But Shakespeare said you hold a mirror up to nature. You try and approximate life as much as possible. Brando used to watch Candid Camera. You try and watch things as closely as you can. You learn from life and you try and represent life as accurately as possible. There’s no right or wrong, there’s just truthful and untruthful.”
He’s a living legend, a star whose career spans six decades, but he’s not nostalgic for the past.
“I think movies are better than ever now. The actors are better. There’s room for everybody now. If you go world wide, I think the actors are better than ever.”
As for his own career, he has more movies on tap, including one he’s directing, starring his wife Luciana Pedraza as a “lady Texas Ranger.” “I got a few more left in me before they wipe the drool,” he says.
Part screwball comedy, part fight for survival, “Anora” is a triumph of controlled chaos. As in his earlier films, “Tangerine,” “The Florida Project” and “Red Rocket,” director Sean Baker keenly observes his characters with empathy and emotion in stories that examine money, class, and power. Mikey Madison, best known to date as the oldest sibling on the sit com “Better Things” and being burned alive in both “Scream (5)” and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” hands in a career re-defining performance as sex worker Anora a.k.a. Ani. An electric combination of tough-as-nails ferocity, self-assurance, desperation and poignant vulnerability, she is as compelling and charismatic a lead as we’ll see at the movies this year.
A story of sexual power, control and humiliation, “Babygirl” is risky and frisky with a fearless performance from Nicole Kidman.
“Better Man,” the biopic of Take That singer-turned-solo superstar Robbie Williams is a sex, drugs and British Pop story given an audacious treatment by “The Greatest Showman” director Michael Gracey. A surreal mix of “Behind the Music” and “Planet of the Apes,” it is a raw portrayal of the singer’s vulnerabilities and foibles in which he’s rendered throughout as a CGI monkey. No explanations are offered, and none are needed. Whether it’s a comment on the performing monkey nature of his work, or his ever-evolving emotional state, or whatever, it’s a startling and surprisingly effective gimmick in a wildly entertaining film.
“Conclave,” the story of the ritual to elect a new Pope, reflects a spiritual process marred by very human foibles. It’s a very timely study of the quest for power which seems even more relevant in a US election year. “The men who are dangerous are the men who want the power.”
Ron Howard’s “Eden” is a star-studded—Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby, Sydney Sweeney, Jude Law and Daniel Brühl— story of backstabbing, ego and survival set against the unforgiving landscape of a deserted Galápagos Island. Based on a true story, it’s a heart of darkness tale done on an operatic level.
Hugh Grant delivers a career redefining performance as the charming face of theological curiosity in “Heretic.” A two-hour doctrinal cat-and-mouse game with two Mormon missionaries (Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher), the movie digs deep, gets dark but never forgets to have fun.
As idiosyncratic movie as we’re likely to see this year, “Megalopolis” is a forty-years-in-the-making passion project from Francis Ford Coppola that brims with imagination, ambition and, unfortunately, self-indulgence. Equal parts hammy and hopeful, dense and dazzling, it’s the work of a filmmaker with nothing left to prove.
Told from the point of view of the ghost, the scares in “Presence” are muted and not particularly supernatural. The horror here is the carefully observed, callous behavior between several of the characters. It’s a stylish, visually interesting twist on a ghost story that entertains the eye but may not move the spirit.
An intense look at the chaotic ninety minutes before the first broadcast of “Saturday Night Live” on October 11, 1975, “Saturday Night” captures the anxiety, the humour and the sheer nerve it took to get the show off the ground. We know how it ends—“SNL” celebrates 50 seasons this year—but a great ensemble cast brings this love letter to show business, tenacity and Lorne Michaels to vivid life.
A revenge drama about legacy, genetic memory, social media and a cat named Potato, “Seeds” is a tense thriller that delivers its message with plenty of humor before the going gets gory. At a quick 85 minutes “Seeds” features great performances— Graham Greene, as the host of a television true crime show who speaks to Ziggy in her dreams and Goldtooth are standouts—and succeeds both as a revenge drama and an expression of Indigenous legacy and power.
“The Shrouds” revisits David Cronenberg’s go-to themes of body horror, invasive technology and paranoia in a film that promises to be a provocative and empathetic study of grief.
“The Substance” has a lot on its mind. Writer/director Coralie Fargeat infuses the story with her thoughts on youth, beauty, fame and Hollywood’s unrealistic beauty standards, and uses body horror coupled with the bonkers, Grand Guignol ending to make her points. It goes on a bit too long, but Fargeat’s gruesome vision, and the finale’s ankle-deep bloodbath, is a thing of terrible beauty.
Part rom com and part essay on what lingers after we’re gone, “We Live in Time” is a five-hankie tear-jerker fueled by the intimate and charismatic performances of its leads Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield.
Based on Peter Brown’s award-winning, #1 New York Times bestseller of the same name, the animated “The Wild Robot” will put you in the mind of “The Iron Giant,” “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” and “WALL-E,” but carves out its own, unique, rewarding space. Brimming with compassion, humor and kindness, it has the makings of a classic.
A modern riff on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 18th-century novella “The Sorrows of Young Werther,” “Young Werther,” takes a love-at-first-sight premise, the stuff of rom coms, and uses that as a springboard to examine self-absorbed youth, unrequited love, rejection and the true nature of love.
I sit in with NewsTalk 1010’s Jim Richards to talk about attending a screening of “The Apprentice,” then controversial film based on the early life of Donald Trump.
I chose the Toronto International Film Festival movie I am most excited to see for Toronto Star film critic Peter Howell’s annual TIFF round-up.
“‘The Shrouds’ revisits David Cronenberg’s go-to themes of body horror, invasive technology and paranoia in a film that promises to be a provocative and empathetic study of grief.” WILD CARD: “The Last Showgirl”
I appear on the “Toronto Legends Podcast” to talk TIFF, hosting press conferences and growing up in a theatre.
“Film critic/author/broadcaster Richard Crouse talks about his Donald Sutherland ice-breaker, Simon Le Bon’s love of Mr Greenjeans’ Buffalo Chips, kind words for Cameron Bailey’s leadership and agreement with his view that ‘moviewatching is best as a communal experience,’ Brad Pitt’s insouciance to a tidal wave of flashbulbs, why Hugh Jackman and Lady Gaga are ‘good people’, his upcoming book of Lessons Learned, why popcorn is like razorblades for your colon, how ‘review bombing’ is a bad trend, the ‘unspoken contract’ of interviewing celebrities, and setting the record straight on Madonna’s rumoured edict “not to look her directly in the eyes” [spoiler alert: FALSE]!”
“I’m a sucker for music documentaries so I’m all in for this. It promises rare footage, great music and an in-depth look at a very private superstar.” — Richard Crouse, host, “Pop Life” (Wild card: “Compartment No. 6”)
From TRNTO.com: “For the second year in a row, TIFF, the world’s largest public film festival will be a little less public than it was pre-pandemic. The Toronto International Film Festival, which runs from Sept. 9 to 18, continues with the hybrid model — a mix of in-person and online screenings — adopted last year in response to COVID-19. This year’s slate includes more than 100 of the best features and documentaries the world has to offer…” Read the whole thing HERE!
As the Toronto International Film Festival winds down here’s a look back at some of the highlights of the last few days.
NOT URBAN COWBOY: Despite the similarities in name “Concrete Cowboy,” the new drama starring Idris Elba and Caleb McLaughlin of “Stranger Things” as father and son, has nothing to do with “Urban Cowboy,” the 1980 John Travolta cheese fest. This is a deeply felt, if slightly predictable coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the urban cowboy subculture of north Philadelphia. Loosely based on the book “Ghetto Cowboy” by Greg Neri, “Concrete Cowboy” is a western but told from a different point of view than we usually see. Director Ricky Staub does a commendable job at building the world Harp and Cole inhabit. Their way of life is an anachronism in the big city, but the greater purpose of providing opportunities to the area’s youth is timeless.
DENZEL WASHINGTON ON CHADWICK BOSEMAN: As part of a virtual talk during the TIFF “In Conversation” series, Washington (who was chatting with director Barry Levinson) spoke eloquently about the passing of the “Black Panther” star. “Who knew he didn’t have much life left? He didn’t get cheated. We did. I pray for his poor wife and his family. They got cheated, but he lived a full life.”
WAHLBERG’S JOURNEY in “GOOD JOE BELL”: Mark Wahlberg is the good man of the title, Joe Bell, husband to Lola (Connie Britton), father to sons Joseph (Maxwell Jenkins) and Jadin (Reid Miller), a young gay man who took his own life after repeated bullying from the jocks at his high school. Unable to resolve his feelings, Joe hits the road, vowing to walk from La Grande, Oregon to New York City, the city of Jadin’s dreams. It’s a time of solitude for Joe to wrestle with his own complicity in his son’s death and make stops along the way to mumble his way through halting speeches about bullying at local high schools. Written by the “Brokeback Mountain” screenwriting team of Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry, “Good Joe Bell” has its heart in the right place but makes missteps along Joe’s journey.
WORST FATHER EVER: Darth Vader may be the cosmically worst cinematic father in the universe but down on earth Willis, as played by Lance Henriksen in the new film “Falling,” gives the “Star Wars” villain a run for his money. Writer, director and star Viggo Mortensen found inspiration for the story after caring for his real-life father in his declining years. Mortensen plays John, husband of Eric (Terry Chen), son of Willis. He’s ex-Air Force, now working as a commercial pilot based in Los Angeles. It’s a long way from the rural New York farm where he was raised and his father still resides. Willis isn’t doing well. Dementia has robbed him of the ability to live alone in the rambling old farmhouse he’s inhabited for decades. Hoping to make his father’s life easier, John brings him to California with an eye toward making it easier to care for him. Trouble is, Willis’ disease has made him the definition of cantankerous. “Falling” gives genre legend Henriksen his meatiest role in years. He is the dominant and dominating character, a man who makes Archie Bunker look like Justin Trudeau.
SCORSESE AT THE TIFF TRIBUTE AWARDS: Kicking off the virtual fundraiser, aired on CTV, Martin Scorsese was impassioned as he spoke about the importance of film festivals. “It’s becoming sadly common to see cinema marginalized and devalued, and in this situation, categorized sort of as a form of comfort food, so to celebrate its very existence is all the more important and necessary. We can never remind people enough that this remarkable art form has always been and always will be much more than a diversion.”
A PICTURE IS WORTH 1000 WORDS: As Chief Official White House Photographer for two US Presidents, Pete Souza had an up-close-and-personal look at the hallways of power and the men who walked them. “The Way I See It,” captures a detailed behind-the-scenes profile of power and the responsibility that comes along with the office. “The Way I See It” is Souza’s story but the larger picture it paints is one of the importance of photography. If a picture is worth a thousand words this movie speaks volumes. Souza’s photos capture the hope and empathy that characterized the Obama years in stark contrast to the anxiety that surrounds the current election season. The photos tell the tale, for now and posterity.
